ALERT: VIP Subscriptions

Just a quick note, since the old subscriptions for people who donated were on the old system, I had to go through this morning and cancel all of them. For those of you who have an active subscription, that shouldn't affect your current status. However, when it ends, you'll simply just need to go to the new page to activate a new one:

www.patsfans.com/new-england-patriots/messageboard/account/upgrades

To find this link normally, if you click on your name, you'll see a link that says "Account Upgrades" - that's where you'll go to set up your new subscription, or to make a one-time donation for the year.

After doing so, please make sure you go here and re-enter your information for your package from the Pro Shop:

Donate to PatsFans.com

You'll need to re-enter your address and shirt size each year, as I archive this each time I submit it to the Pro Shop to a) Keep a file of when I emailed them, and b) by having you put in your info each year I won't accidentally send them an old address if any of you move. So it's important that you do this each time your payment goes through so I can make sure you get your stuff.

In the meantime thank you to all of you who have supported me over the years and continue to do so. It means a lot, and I'll keep working on improving this place and the site as a whole. The goal is to make the site an interesting and useful resource for everyone, as well as making sure the community and forum are also a place you enjoy visiting each day. As you've seen I'll always continue to add and improve things, and there are a couple of cool things coming that hopefully you guys like for this season.

In the meantime obviously PM (start a new conversation under this software) me if you have any questions, and hopefully this all made sense.

Ian

Hi Ian,

I'm a long-time supporter and faithful lurker. I have a couple of suggestions about subscriptions:

First, make the name on the credit-card charge more apparent that it's you and/or patsfans.com. When I saw an unexpected charge from "Ikinternetd," I suspected fraud.

Second, for the proshop gift, consider making the address and t-shirt size permanent. I'm not moving anywhere anytime soon, and I'm not shrinking, and I better not be growing. In any case, can we get email reminders or something? My concern is that I did the 5-year subscription thing, so I'm out of the loop on the yearly re-up which would serve as a reminder.

Thanks,
Sean

Also, if you recently had a payment go through and you don't have the red banner below your name, let me know so I can correct that.

Rainy-Day Patriot said:

Hi Ian,

I'm a long-time supporter and faithful lurker. I have a couple of suggestions about subscriptions:

First, make the name on the credit-card charge more apparent that it's you and/or patsfans.com. When I saw an unexpected charge from "Ikinternetd," I suspected fraud.

Second, for the proshop gift, consider making the address and t-shirt size permanent. I'm not moving anywhere anytime soon, and I'm not shrinking, and I better not be growing. In any case, can we get email reminders or something? My concern is that I did the 5-year subscription thing, so I'm out of the loop on the yearly re-up which would serve as a reminder.

Thanks,
Sean

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Hi Sean,

First off, thank you for the donation, I appreciate it. I'll have to go into PayPal and alter the profile to reflect the site so it shows up that way when it's charged. I didn't even realize it was coming up that way, so I appreciate you pointing that out.

Per your suggestion I'll also be setting something up moving forward with better email reminders. I'll come up with something that will hopefully send out a notification to allow you to verify your information each year, and am going to try and streamline that a little better. I'm also still working on the final layout for people who have donated, so you'll probably start to see small changes in the next couple of weeks now that we're past the draft. If you or anyone else has any suggestions or requests, you can certainly feel free to post them here as well.

In the meantime thanks again, and obviously PM anytime if I can help with anything

Ian

Also,

For those wondering about paying through PayPal:

The "Annual PatsFans.com Donations" is a recurring donation and requires you to set up a PayPal account to automatically renew each year. If you don't want to set up a PayPal account or don't want the charge to automatically go through, don't use this one.

The other three donation options simply process your card and don't require you to set up an account with them, they're just the payment processor and it's a one-time charge that you can manually renew on your own later on if you wish.

I just renewed my subscription for 5 more years. Thanks for all of the hard work and dedication Ian!

A couple of things. When I processed my PayPal payment I received a message that "This transaction will appear on your statement as PayPal *PATSFANSCOM." So it have been changed from the "Ikinternetd" as Rainy-Day Patriot said above.

Also, I think a reminder email maybe a week before your card is charged via PayPal would be a good idea. I know last year mine didn't go through because my credit card's expiration date was out of date on PayPal. So maybe something saying, "Please confirm your address and shirt size here and also check your credit card information via PayPal"

Thanks!

Ian - As always, thank you for everything you do..

Was just going through and wanted to say thank you to many of you who donated yesterday. Your support is definitely appreciated and it helps more than you can you can imagine, believe me.

Ian, is there any way to have our enrollment date shown in our profile? I am currently a VIP member but I have no idea when my renewal date is. It seems like it's been a lot longer than a year.

bresna said:

Ian, is there any way to have our enrollment date shown in our profile? I am currently a VIP member but I have no idea when my renewal date is. It seems like it's been a lot longer than a year.

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I'll have to see if I can code something. But the reason why it seems like it's been longer than a year is because you did a 5-year one (yours goes through Jul 13, 2017), so be sure to re-enter your info for the next round of shipments when I send the list to them.

Ian said:

I'll have to see if I can code something. But the reason why it seems like it's been longer than a year is because you did a 5-year one (yours goes through Jul 13, 2017), so be sure to re-enter your info for the next round of shipments when I send the list to them.

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Ian - Are you going to do an auto-notification each year about having to make sure the info is updated? So that people like bresna and myself know to check/update it?

DaBruinz said:

Ian - Are you going to do an auto-notification each year about having to make sure the info is updated? So that people like bresna and myself know to check/update it?

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I'm going to code something out to make it easier. The software's a little lacking in that regard, so I'll create something that will allow you to be reminded to verify your information after you renew, or for those who donated for a "5-year" membership so they can just verify their addresses

I like the option of using a credit card instead of Paypal. I seem to intend to keep a little bit of money in Paypal to cover this, but the cupboard is always bare come June or whatever it is. I have to remember how to transfer back in the money--it's a hassle. Why can't everyone just take credit cards? Prostitutes even take credit cards these days (or so I'm told).

I've set my own reminder in Outlook.

Dragda said:

I like the option of using a credit card instead of Paypal. I seem to intend to keep a little bit of money in Paypal to cover this, but the cupboard is always bare come June or whatever it is. I have to remember how to transfer back in the money--it's a hassle. Why can't everyone just take credit cards? Prostitutes even take credit cards these days (or so I'm told).

I've set my own reminder in Outlook.

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No worries. Don't get "taking PayPal" confused with "taking credit cards" in this case. I use PayPal as just the merchant and credit card processor of the transaction because it's a free service, so you don't need an account with them and they don't require any banking information when you donate, unless you're paying by "E-Check".

If you do the "non-recurring" version (or any other option other than the "Annual" one), you can just pay using your card without registering with them. The only way you would need to register with them is with the "Annual" one, primarily because they want you to have the ability to cancel the subscription.

So yes, you can use your credit card and don't need a PayPal account

Ian, do VIP members still get a discount from the ProShop? If we do, what is the discount code?

Hi Ian,
I really do not want anything to do with PayPal even if they are just getting my credit card number.
I have reasons which I won't go into here. I would suggest other forms of payment such as an old fashion
check which can be mailed to you. I would even consider Amazon Payments as an acceptable alternative.
I would like to support you but not with PayPal involved.

You can make a one time credit card payment/donation with NO PayPal

I personally like Paypal, but that's just me. I keep a little money in the account, but the rest of the time, like Ian says, I just use my credit card through it.

And to echo the others, thanks again, Ian, for this site. It's a pleasure to be a part of.

bresna said:

Ian, do VIP members still get a discount from the ProShop? If we do, what is the discount code?

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There's no code - you'll just call up using your user account as a reference and tell them you're a "PatsFans.com VIP Member" and you should be on a list, which I sent him an updated list this morning so hopefully you're all set. I might wait until Monday though just to give him time to make sure the employees have it so you're not given a hard time. Unfortunately they're still not at the point where it can be done online...I'm sure they'll get there someday.

JR4 said:

Hi Ian,
I really do not want anything to do with PayPal even if they are just getting my credit card number.
I have reasons which I won't go into here. I would suggest other forms of payment such as an old fashion
check which can be mailed to you. I would even consider Amazon Payments as an acceptable alternative.
I would like to support you but not with PayPal involved.

Click to expand...

Amazon Payments is interesting, wasn't aware of that. I'll have to look into it and appreciate the suggestion

PatsWickedPissah said:

You can make a one time credit card payment/donation with NO PayPal

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I understand a papal account is not needed. But unless I misunderstood Ian, the way he has it
set up is that paypal takes the credit card information and processes the payment for Ian. I do not
want paypal seeing my credit card information. Ever wonder why there is no significant paypal
alternative?

Ian said:

There's no code - you'll just call up using your user account as a reference and tell them you're a "PatsFans.com VIP Member" and you should be on a list, which I sent him an updated list this morning so hopefully you're all set. I might wait until Monday though just to give him time to make sure the employees have it so you're not given a hard time. Unfortunately they're still not at the point where it can be done online...I'm sure they'll get there someday.

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For the first time in years, I tried calling the Pro Shop to use my patsfans.com VIP member discount and no matter which avenue I tried, I never got through. The phone either rings & rings or it just disconnects. I truly wish that we were issued a coupon code of some type that we could use.